The personal website of Richard (Riche) Morgan guitar instrumentalist:@))
Adventurer, Sportsman,Historian,Builder, Soldier,Guitarist,Musician,Composer and above all Family man, :@))
"Brother to a prince and fellow to a beggar if proved worthy"(Rudyard Kipling)
Sunday 29 March 2020
THE MAGIC BOW 🎼🎻🎸👍🏻😀
The Magic Bow is my most recent composition and it leans heavily on the neo- classical style of rock guitar playing as exemplified by players such as Yngwie Malmsteen. The title itself eludes to the 1940’s film of the same name which starred Stuart Granger as the great virtuoso violinist Niccolò Paganini.
First time playing the Worcester Music Fest, due to busy family commitments there has being little opportunity to perform at the fest. This year was different though, it was a late application (two days before the fest!) to play at a very conveniently located venue which had available time slots.
The afforded me the chance to use a newly aquired Laney VC50 valve amp. The powerful amp was able to accomodate a Boss Drum Machine and with the help of a sound engineer,was able to balance the sound levels correctly. A mixture of effects processor and the amps own organic overdrives gleaned an impressive tone. Positive feedback (which is always welcome) from accomplished guitarists in the audience was very useful in regards to effects and how they are implemented.
Being part of the festival and the venues location led to a steady flow of clientel who thanked me for performing (I'm hardly a cabaret act and quite niche) but the thanks was welcome. Friends and family came and watched which is always great for a bit of moral support. The landlord of the venue had done his homework and got hold of some class acts from out of the shire to perform, the pity was that they received no publicity from their performances.
With said friends and family, after watching a couple of bands at the Cap n Gown, it was a nice stroll along to other venues to see other acts perform and finish with a family meal.
After an invite from my friend Jon Charles I found myself for the second year in succession returning to the Wyche Inn in Colwal Malvern to participate in the festival of the Wyche. This is a predominantly heavy rock/metal affair with the exception of myself doing my quayzee neo-classical guitar instrumentals.
Started the set at early Doris so as not to impede other artists and also adds to a certain amount of flexibility.
The set list for this event was as follows;
Wear this crown of thorns
Esperanto
Climb a White Spider
Mademoiselle Isobel
Captain Nemo's Nautilus
Chance upon Bevere Green
The Blue Hour
Via Vallencheros
Moonfleet
Gig rig and equipment used for the set;
Squire Fender Custom Telecaster
Peavey Bravo 25w all valve combo
Boss 123 drum machine
Having recently fixed the Peavey amps Spring reverb, there was the disconcerting experience of seeing smoke around the amp, thankfully only to discover that Jon was just testing out his smoke machine.
The gig itself went smoothly, or few mistakes that worth dwelling on. Even though it was early afternoon there was much appreciated support from members of other bands that had turned up early, so big cheers and thanks for that, and Jon Charles for asking me to play It was also good to have a follow up beer back in Worcester with a good friend and watch England do the grand slam on the Six Nations. :)
1pm on August 4th saw the return of me to the Nags Head in Malvern for its annual music festival which is now in its fourth year. This year it was in aid of the charities acorns and St Richards Hospice. Doing something in aid of St Richards hospice was particularly gratifying as I was heavily involved in building Worcester's St Richards Hospice due to being a bricklayer on the books of the Malvern firm that got the contract to build it. There wasn't a part of it that did did not have my hand on it doing some form of construction inside or out and was the last builder on the place finishing off or correcting any of the brickwork and paving. I was there just after the foundations & footings were put in in Nov 2005 and left October 2006 to work on another hospice at Wellington near Telford. Building and construction is not a particularly fair environment and I don't mention my time in construction due to this, however it was nice that some years later I now sit on a board of governors and had to vote on wether they received multi million pounds worth of construction contracts from where I work. I voted for them to get the contracts, not to prove I'm not vindictive but to ensure friends I made with the firm stayed in work.
Picture by Duncan Graves.
Joe. Vinnie.
Been a solo performer for sometime now but this saw a new development in that my son has evolved into a very good drummer and at a very young age and has now joined me and his Uncle Tim and the colossal guitar talent that is Vinnie Liotta into forming a full band which will be gigging next year.
Picture by Duncan Graves.
With my wood stained custom Shadow Guitar
Set List. Esperanto, Into the Wilderness, Chance Upon Bevere Green, Captain Nemo's Nautilus, Mademoiselle Isobel, Sea Clipper, Via Vallencheros, The Blue Hour, ( With Joe, Tim & Vinnie ) Wear this Crown of Thorns, Moonfleet.
Saturday 21st March; I had the privilege of being the opening act for "Festival of the Wyche" . A heavy rock/metal extravaganza evolving top acts of the genre from around the shire.
Not particularly metal or that heavy but certainly ROCK!!! It was the sort of gig that locally that I could more comfortably slot into. The guys who organised the event , I got acquainted with last yeah and was good to meet up with them again.
Starting the set of with "Esperanto" I then swiftly moved onto "Into the wilderness".The guitar of choice for the gig was my Shadow 2eq5 custom which is ideal for nippy fingers which was put through a Vox Valvetronix amp.
New tune "Blu ovr u" an attempt at a bluesy based composition which tries to avoid the usual run of the mill cliched techniques. The light hearted E major dominated composition "Chance upon Bevere green then followed.
Me, Vinnie and my son Joe all performing together for the first time.
The tune that we all played together on was my composition "The Blue hour".
Vinnie, Left sharing lead guitar duties.
My son Joe, Right making his public debut on drums.
After the guest appearances of Vinnie & Joe the set was resumed wit the neo-classical very prevalent in tunes "Via Vallencheros" & " Wear this crown of thorns" and then finishing of with "Moonfleet".
While on holiday in France; My wife gave me a copy of Joe Satriani's autobiography"Strange Beautiful Music"a musical memoir;for my birthday.The book itself primarily has Joe discussing his musical journey through life and his dedication to the guitar.
There is something so compellingly intrinsic about music composers in general and for me, never more so than Joe Satriani. From first listening to him in the late 1980's I have found him totally inspiring. Technical proficiency on the guitar was an all possessing goal for me through the eighties with little regard for musical theory. When listening to his tunes, there was a total lack of understanding how he put such complex compositions together. Only when reading the interviews he gave (which were very articulate and incisive) that the realisation came of how he made his music, which was through him being very well read in musical theory.This in turn set me about heavily reading the ins and out of musical theory; enabling me me to compose my own compositions at will, about anything that influences me or comes into my head rather than rely on musical parts falling in to place over time;Due to me knowing what chords, notes and modes fit together in any given key or simply modulating across them.It also brought me in to the world of guitar tutoring which I did quite heavily for the first half of the 90's and in a modest way until quite recently.
I've picked my top ten compositions of Joe Satriani; in chronological order which has kept my enthusiasm in playing guitar very much alive over the decades from when first hearing him.
I first heard Satiani's album "Surfing with the Alien"(and Satriani) in a car with a friend in 1987/88. He then subsequently lent me the tape(he never got it back! sorry Tim) This album got an absolute pasting from me and did eventually have on vinyl and cd . At that time of first acquiring the album, there was a tendency to listen to it late at night while walking my dog(an English springier spaniel named Tommy) across the fields where I lived.(usually after first visiting the local pub). The track that really touched and inspired was what probably has become his most Identifiable composition "Always with you always with me" .
Some eighteen months later towards the end of 1989, I acquired a copy of his album "Flying in a Blue Dream".The year itself proved to be seminal for me as that year I met my wife. There's a great deal of material on this album, some brilliant some not's so. The track that got me straight away was "Day at the beach (new rays from an ancient sun)" in which he incorporates his four fingered tapping technique to great melodic effect.
It wasn't until 1992 that the next Satriani album was released.The Extremist is one of his best records which features two of my favorite Satriani compositions: Friends and Rubinas Blue Sky Happiness. Bought for me by girlfriend/wife as a birthday present, it always reminds me of the flat I lived in at the time; handy place nicely situated above a curry house and a pub;)
The opening track: Friends has a very upbeat feel while Rubinas blue sky happiness has brilliant rhythmic playing, Holdsworth style legato and also incorporates a nice Celtic feel.
Friends performed Live.
Rubinas Blue Sky Happiness;taken from the Extremist album.
The following year of the Extremists album release; I finally got to see Joe Satriani perform live. He performed in Birmingham at the National exhibition center with Adrian Legg as support. The journey there was memorable in that the radiator cap on my car was loose and therefore loosing water, thankfully a burger wagon on a side road of the motorway helped me out and arrived just in time to see Satriani perform but sadly missed the opportunity to see Adrian Legg :(
The route to Birmingham over that time was common for me and one of my fav albums to listen to was the Time Machine album. Bought for me by my girlfriend/wife; it was also the last vinyl album that I owned. Further more it was a triple lp with some new tunes out takes and live recordings. One of my very favorite Satriani recordings is the title track the Time Machine.
Below, Joe Satriani performing the composition, Time Machine.
Not until 1995 when the next musical offering came;turned out to be a rather subdued affair and came when I was busy studying at University.Saw Satriani for the second time while he was touring to support the album.This has been the album which you would find Joe Satriani at his most mellow and was one of those albums that I played a considerable amount while churning out assignments for my History degree while at Uni. Favorite track for me was a composition called "Home". Couldn't find a live recording of this track, so have just uploaded from his self titled album.
Home, from the Joe Satriani album.
It would be three years before the next original Joe Satriani album and this was to be the Crystal Planet. A space rock orientated album of which this time provided a back drop soundtrack to me serving in the army in Bosnia. The track "Raspberry jam delta" for me, is the stand out composition on the album.
Joe Satriani performing Raspberry Jam Delta live in San Francisco.
Between Raspberry Jam Delta and the next tune, A Love Eternal, eight years had passed by. Not that Satriani hadn't produced great material, the bulk of his most popular and groundbreaking tunes were done primarily in the late 80's early 90's . However in this time period there was rekindling of an old friendship, As avid guitar players, we both had a huge respect for Joe Satriani's work and together we saw him in 2002, 2004 with Steve Via and 2008 with Paul Gilbert. Due to work commitments I didn't get to see him perform in 2006 which on this occasion I missed the chance to meet him personally, though my friend Joey Blueman did. The chance to meet him personally passed me by again for similar reasons when he played at Wolverhampton in 2013.
My guitar mentor and great friend Joey Blueman with me, watching Joe Satriani in Birmingham in 2008.
Podcast by Joe Satriani; talking about his tune A Love Eternal.
A Love Eternal; last but one track from the Super Colossal album, is one of my favorite later Satriani composition's. Really noticed the tune when it was used as a soundtrack for a short docufilm about his tour of India. Its very typical of Satriani's slower more movingly melodic instrumentals.
Studio version of A Love Eternal.
My personal favorite Satriani composition is taken from the album "Professor Sachafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock". The track Andalusia is best described by the man himself in another one of his podcast ;
And here it is again performed live in Paris
The final track of my top ten is from his album "Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards" which is called "Pyrrhic Victoria". Instead of going to see him live me and my friend went up to Birmingham to watch it in a special screening in 3d. It gave a new perspective on how the media can be used to reach out to fans.
The podcast for Pyrrhic Victoria.
Pyrrhic Victoria performed live, again in Paris.
Will finish this blog with an extract from his book which is the totally epitome of what I am personally trying to achieve,
"I felt the artistic drive to strike out on my own, and I thought, I've got to do it in a way where maybe I'm not using it to make money or to be a career, it is purely an artistic venture. That's why I got so into playing, and to accomplish this, I was going to need to control it. I couldn't ruin it by trying to bring it into my reality as a working musician. I had to keep it as a new thing where I could control every element , where trying to make it go commercial never entered into it. I knew instinctively if I got the people I knew involved in it, that it would be compromised. Therefore if I wasn't expecting to make money from it, I didn't have to include anybody. It would be like sitting at home and painting weird pictures for yourself without worrying about the outside world and how people will review them or if they'll buy them or not. So once I'd crossed that threshold, I realised, "Wow, I can do whatever I want." So that was a great leap for me, intellectually and emotionally."(Satiani 2014).
Played the Beauchamp Arms, Malvern Link, Worcestershire on Friday 25th July
Kicking of my set with Esperanto(hopeful)
This year on the Malvern Rocks Festival, I had the privilege of playing at the Beauchamp Arms in Malvern Link. Like most venues locally the gig was played in a function room / skittle ally (skittles being a preserve of the west midlands, though diminishing over the years). Billed to go on at eight, a quick run through with the sound engineer and also a sound guy (a Mr JM Charles) and I was away.
Though I always appear as a one man band with a guitar and drum machine;it doesn't matter to how few or how many people that are played to, I believe a good gig is if the performance was able to communicate what it intended too. This happens due to a sound engineer being on the ball. My relience on these guy's cannot be understated enough so a big hats of to JM Charles for getting my equalisation's right.
I was billed with two other bands;unforeseen circumstances meant that both bands had to pull out which was a shame and especially in the case of the Massive head trauma guy's , as the bassist went down with heat stroke (we are experiencing a very hot summer again) and hope he recovers soon;The meet of their lead singer was I nice highlight of many highlights that evening , a certain Reverend Genges Memphis (Gary Lewis) who turns out to be ex British armed forces (as myself) and a nice bit of banter was exchanged.
Set list.
Esperanto(hopeful)
Asturius/Climb a white spider
Chance upon Bevere green
A patch of blue sky
Sinfonia/Wear this crown of thorns
Mademoiselle Isobel
The Blue Hour
Via Vallencheros
Moonfleet
Col du tourmalet
The Blue Hour.one of my longer compositions. Breaks up the set from the speedier more technical tunes that I do. This number also allows me to break out my Jim Dunlop cry baby wah wah which I've had in my possession since 1985!!!
Gear list
Fender squire custom telecaster
Peavey bravo valve amp
Jim Dunlop cry baby wah wah
Boss loop station
Zoom rhythm trak 123 drum machine
Planet wave leads
Mahogany tone picks
Finishing the set of with Moonfleet, though an unexpected additional tune was played (Col du Tourmalet) as there was band issues with the following acts.
Really nice too have a decent bat with me tunes;big thanks to the Malvern rocks organisers for letting me play on it again this year,and cool to get acquainted with new friends.Great that my daughter and one of my son's came with me and watched and especially my great friend and climbing oppo Dunk Graves and my great friend and guitar mentor Vinnie Liotta came and supported as well. Due to the age of my children we could only stay until a certain time so it was a nice late summer evening drive to a country pub.
Into the Wilderness,
